Roller mills comprise a rotatable grinding table and grinding rollers rolling thereupon. In order to turn the grinding table, either the grinding table or the grinding rollers can be driven.
In both cases, it is necessary to accommodate the axial forces occurring in the process in axial bearings.
As described, for example, in DE 39 31 116 A1, the pressure forces acting in the axial direction are taken up by axial thrust bearings, which are supported on a base.
Axial thrust bearings usually consist of a plurality of axial bearing segments, arranged circularly side by side.
For reasons of manufacture, the base can have unevenness that leads to differences in height between individual axial bearing segments. As a result, the lubrication gaps on individual axial bearing segments differ in size. However, the lubricating film thickness influences the load bearing capacity of a single axial bearing segment. Thus, an increase in the thickness of the lubricating gap leads to an enormous reduction in the load bearing capacity of a single axial bearing segment.
Further, individual axial bearing segments can also have different heights due to manufacturing tolerances, which also leads to the fact that the lubricating gap thickness differs from axial bearing segment to axial bearing segment.
Various possibilities have already been suggested for compensating the differences in height between the individual axial bearing segments. Height-adjustable or elastic bearing elements have been proposed.
For example, DE 10 2010 007 929 A1 describes an elastic bearing element.
DE 10 2010 007 929 A1 discloses in detail an annular base element, which can be mounted on a base or support element and which comprises a base body that can be connected to the base or support element and a hollow ring element. The hollow ring element protrudes beyond the base body. Several axial sliding bearing segments are arranged on the ring element. The stiffness of the ring element is selected in such a way that unevenness in the base is compensated so as to avoid negative influences from the unevenness of the base on the lubricating gap.
The assembly described in DE 10 2010 007 929 A1 has a relatively complex structure. Further, the axial loads lead to bending or membrane stresses instead of simple pressure stresses. Further, the described assembly is difficult to adapt to a different segment number and other kind of forces.